Thanks to no snow at Northstar-at-Tahoe and too much snow at Breckenridge last weekend US Snowboarding has decided to hold a USA only event at Mammoth Mountain this week, meaning three of the five Olympic snowboarding qualifiers will go down at one resort in four days and then the US Olympic Snowboard Team will be named.
Maintaining the integrity of the Olympic qualifying system is paramount to U.S. Snowboarding,” says USSA Director of Freestyle and Snowboarding Jeremy Forster. “One of the keys to our success has been fielding strong Olympic teams chosen from five qualifiers. That is the selection criteria we put forward to the USOC and it is our intent to find a solution so that we can run five qualifiers for both halfpipe and slopestyle.”
How’s that for half the season in one weekend? Follow the jump for the official word from the USSA including the event schedule.USSA Seeking Replacement Olympic Qualifier This Week
New Olympic Qualifications Confirmed at Mammoth
PARK CITY, UT (Jan. 14) – The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association has now confirmed the addition of new Olympic snowboarding qualifiers to replace the canceled events from last weekend. The International Ski Federation Tuesday stated that an appeal to the cancelation decision had been denied, indicating that the FIS jury acted exactly per the rules. That decision paved the way for the addition of U.S. only replacement events Thursday and Friday as a part of the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix at Mammoth Mountain. The plan has approval from the U.S. Olympic Committee.
HIGHLIGHTS
The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association has confirmed a plan to run U.S. only Olympic qualifiers this week at Mammoth Mountain to replace the snowboarding halfpipe and slopestyle competitions canceled due to snow and low visibility at Breckenridge Saturday.
The canceled competitions were the third of five Olympic qualifiers.
The USSA is moving forward following a denial of an appeal on Saturday’s FIS jury decision to the International Ski Federation. FIS ruled that the jury accorded exactly accordingly to the published rules.
Various options were considered by the USSA and it was determined that the most fair way to conduct Olympic qualification in slopestyle and halfpipe was to replace the events and stay at five qualifiers.
The revised plan is to run a U.S. only replacement for the third qualifier at Mammoth Mountain this week, prior to the already scheduled fourth and fifth qualifiers.
The new third qualifiers would be open to any U.S. athletes who were eligible to compete at Breckenridge. The field for the fourth and fifth qualifiers would remain as planned with only the top athletes in the rankings after three events.
The replacement qualifier will be sanctioned only as a USSA competition, not FIS or TTR, and is not be open to foreign athletes or scored as a FIS or TTR competition.
PROPOSED REVISED SCHEDULE
Sprint U.S. Grand Prix, Mammoth Mountain (all times local, PST)
Thursday, Jan. 16
9:30-11:00 a.m. – Slopestyle Final – U.S. Olympic qualification #3
1:30-3:00 p.m. – Slopestyle Final – U.S. Olympic qualification #4
Friday, Jan. 17
9:30-10:45 a.m. – Halfpipe Final – U.S. Olympic qualification #3
12:10-2:30 p.m. – Halfpipe Final – U.S. Olympic qualification #4
Saturday, Jan. 18
11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. – Slopestyle Final – U.S. Olympic qualification #5
Sunday, Jan. 19
11:40 a.m.-2:00 p.m. – Halfpipe Final – U.S. Olympic qualification #5
Announcement of team nominations to follow
